Maria Cosway painting in a lunatic's cell in an asylum. Coloured etching, 1786.

In the cell are paintings or drawings by her of "Giants of Ossian", "Eolus", "Samson", and "Deluge". Pigments, and a pestle and mortar for grinding them, lie on the floor, on a paper inscribed "Dicky Cos[way]" (final word indistinct). The implication seems to be that Maria Cosway suffered from manic over-ambition as a history painter compared with what was expected of a woman artist